The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was keep. (non-admin closure) --Trialpears (talk) 20:31, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Template:IAAF name (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Duplicates the information that is gathered from ((Authority control))--Biografer (talk) 17:28, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• @Biografer: Template:IAAF is a redirect. Did you mean to nominate Template:IAAF name instead? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:49, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Pppery: Yes.--Biografer (talk) 00:04, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Authority control is a reactive function. After an article is discovered, it inserts a tiny notation at the bottom of the article that does not look like it is an important part of the article and is easily missed by the general public. In short, it looks like repetitive junk rather than article specific. I create a lot of articles about athletes using this template. Until Authority control reacts, many articles on up and coming athletes might look unsourced, aside from the information contained in their IAAF profile. That is when an article is the most vulnerable. It would look like low hanging fruit for idiot deletionists trying to get more brownie points. The IAAF Name template demonstrates the importance of this athlete to the world body and reduces the number of unwarranted attacks. Trackinfo (talk) 02:58, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  I want to extend a compliment possibly to whoever submitted this TfD, not that I agree with it. This is the first TfD I have seen where a proper notice was posted on affected articles. I think it should be mandatory. It is the only way a fair discussion can be held. This proves it can be done. Trackinfo (talk) 03:01, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  The person to compliment for that is me, not the nominator of the TfD. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:43, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  Then let me give you your props Pppery. And even more important, how? Its make this public. Lets make this part of every TfD nomination. Trackinfo (talk) 04:07, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  It usually is part of nearly every TfD nomination, where technically possible, although people tend to complain when TfD tags are added to templates transcluded in large numbers of pages, which sometimes results in the TfD tags being hidden. Not sure why you've never seen a TfD with that kind of notice before. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:15, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per @Trackinfo: --Kasper2006 (talk) 03:15, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Trackinfo: So what you are saying is that when Wikipedia will get rid of Wikidata, then these Authority control things will become obsolete, because they are "junk". There are other sources that we can use as an external link that wont duplicate what's in Authority control. Sports-Reference.com have the same info as IAAF name have. Point?--Biografer (talk) 04:50, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  What I am saying is Authority control looks like framing, formatting junk. Something to be ignored. Frequently ignored and formatted out of mirror sites (you know we get mirrored) It does not look like anything important to the casual reader . . . you know, the people we are here to inform. Sports-reference also play(ed)s a role. They have some of the best historical information on Olympic athletes, better than IAAF. Non-Olympians do not exist on Sports-reference. It is not an overlap. And Sports-reference stopped updating. How long before their content disappears? And then we have to depend on Wayback, a much more difficult way to search and retrieve source information. I'm not sure how Authority control gets its information. Is it doing a constant name search, comparing new articles to "controlled" sites like IAAF? Or does our inclusion of the IAAF Name template lead it there? Maybe you know, but we could be destroying its reactive effectiveness.

(apparently reacting to editor notes) (Have I never seen such a notification before?) Never, ever, ever. I've been complaining for over a decade. These TfD discussions are conducted in secrecy. People involved in articles that include and depend on templates normally get no notice of any discussion, until they see the contents being deleted en masse across articles they watch. I suggest this is with malicious intent. Deletionists do not want knowledgeable interested editors to tarnish their dirty work, so they don't notify what they are doing. Discussions happen with 2-3 editors then decisions are made affecting thousands. I cast a big net. I personally watch over 15,000 articles, a lot of them involving this particular template. I am constantly shocked at templates and categories being deleted essentially in secrecy. It goes against Wikipedia's core principle of consensus. There should always be a notification of action on ALL articles affected by an action. This is the first I have ever seen of that. Thank you. Trackinfo (talk) 05:01, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Trackinfo: So? What if IAAF dies? We will end up using Wayback either way! Point? And yes, it does a constant name search. I think its bot controlled, or it functions like a bot.--Biografer (talk) 15:24, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

IAAF is not an independent information service like sports-reference. I believe sports-reference gleaned historical information from the IOC and it stopped updating when the IOC took possession of future information. IAAF is the world governing body of the sport. It provides information about the top level athletes under its own administration. If IAAF disappears, another organization will take over in that role and will carry the legacy information. Its not a second party and will not disappear. Trackinfo (talk) 16:45, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Trackinfo: Well Ok. Maybe it was a bad call on my part. First time doing TfD to be honest.

If IAAF disappears, another organization will take over in that role and will carry the legacy information.

Ok. Lets assume that IOC will take over IAAF (a high possibility, considering that IOC does provide it, although less in depth then IAAF), then we will just end up using ((IOC profile)).--Biografer (talk) 19:26, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lets make this clear for novices to sports governance. IOC is responsible for the Olympics. It takes in the money. They actually don't care about sports. Sports is just the product, the contents of the big show the IOC puts on. Olympics are only every four years. Under the IOC, receiving funding from the IOC, are a collection of world sports governing bodies that take care of their specific sports. IAAF is that body for the sport of Athletics; track and field, road running (marathoning), and race walking. You might have heard of FIFA for soccer/futbol. All of them probably have similar corruption. They administer the sport year round, in between Olympics, for the portions of the sport that are not in the Olympics and provide the sport specific guidelines for the events in Olympics. IAAF has been around as an official organization for 107 years. They just put on their biggest show, the World Athletics Championships that ended on Sunday. They are not in danger of being swallowed up by the IOC. And for data purposes, IOC only provides information for the limited set of athletes who make it to the Olympics. Not all elite athletes make it to the Olympics. You could be the #4 long distance runner in Ethiopia or Kenya, or #4 hurdler in the USA, or injured at the wrong time; top ten in the world, notable, relevant and never see the Olympics. IAAF will have a listing. Trackinfo (talk) 21:08, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Trackinfo: Well this quote: "If IAAF disappears, another organization will take over in that role and will carry the legacy information.", wasn't from my mouth but from yours, so if I misunderstood your quote I am sorry. Yes, I know more then just FIFA. I also know the NHL, the NBA, the NFL, and the MLB. What I didn't knew though is that according to the comment of yours that I am reading, they are subsidiary's of IOC???--Biografer (talk) 21:26, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

First, I was answering your hypothetical of So? What if IAAF dies?. I am saying some organization will become responsible for the sport in place of an organization that dies or more likely is given the death penalty for corruption. When the Soviet Union disappeared, Russia replaced it and the corruption continued. IOC is responsible for sports that appear in their show, the Olympics. Those once were "amateur" sports and the legacy amateur sports governing bodies are in charge of their sports. There is no American football in the Olympics, the NFL is not part of this. MLB, NBA and NHL are professional sports leagues. Their sports in the Olympics are governed by the amateur equivalents; WBSC, FIBA and IIHF respectively. There is a name template for those organizations too. Please don't go trying to delete it. Beyond those international governing bodies, each has a domestic affiliate in each country participating. When NBA professional Michael Jordan played for the USA in the Olympics, he had to join USA Basketball the USA affiliate of FIBA. NHL cooperates with IIHF to let their professionals have time off to play for their countries in the Olympics. And that may be ending. When you see the small countries with one or two athletes marching into the Olympic stadium behind their flag, and you see a row of other unidentified people, those are the senior administrators of that country's sports affiliate organizations. Trackinfo (talk) 23:12, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Trackinfo: Don't worry. I'm not a crazy deletionist. :)--Biografer (talk) 00:20, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - The functions are not redundant. Authority control knits together unique identifiers to various catalogue entries and directories. Authority control does not look like an external link, and most certainly does not jump out at the reader that there is a profile for the athlete at site of the governing body. IAAF name is designed to be used as an external link and presents very clearly to the reader as an external link. -- Whpq (talk) 12:27, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Whpq: The questions is, is weather our readers really read those external links that are provided by Wikipedia if they are here to read the article. What I am saying is that if I want to read an article, I would come here, but if I would want to read just their stats, I will go to the IAAF site. :)--Biografer (talk) 15:24, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  Why do we need to presuppose what any reader wants to do? The reader peruses the article and then decides to check out more information as provided in the external links. The IAAF name template makes it abundantly clear to the reader there is an external link. Authority control is an almost meaningless label to an average reader and does not make it at all clear that there is an IAAF profile linked that they can click on to read more about the athlete. --- Whpq (talk) 16:14, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Whpq: Relax. It was just my train of thought. The thing is, is that there are better things to use as an external link. If the authority control is meaningless, then maybe we should remove that instead?--Biografer (talk) 19:26, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Whpq: On the other hand, while I do see its use when the article only relies on external links, it at least provide marginal notability, but once the article gets sourced, I don't see a reason for the template being present. As my other comment above states, we can use different external links that don't duplicate one another, and will be just as reliable. Besides, when an athlete is dead or retired, that profile of him in IAAF becomes redundant too because our articles already state the same facts about him/her. For example, date, place and cause of death, retirement, and even doping allegations with proper sources of course.--Biografer (talk) 20:20, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep This template is to simplify the formatting and insertion of external links to the main international athlete profile – a high value external link for athlete biographies. The authority control template does not serve the clear function of inline external link templates such as this. There is also some short-sightedness in this nomination in that it does not recognise that the IAAF name template is one of the main ways in which new IAAF identifiers get added to Wikidata, and thus appear in the authority control template that is posited as a replacement. SFB 19:10, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Sillyfolkboy: So what you are saying is that it should be Authority control that should go, because as soon as we get rid of Wikidata then this template becomes ineffective? Am I reading your comment correctly?--Biografer (talk) 19:28, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Biografer: I'm not looking to delete the Authority Control template or get rid Wikidata. I support both that template and the Wikidata initiative. I don't think this is an "either-or" discussion. The Authority Control template is a very effective way of enumerating all the centralised repository links for a topic that are held on Wikidata, for the benefit of researchers. IAAF Name is a very effective way of standardising in-line external links to a high value source for athlete biographies, for the benefit of a general reader (and it also helps populate and clean-up Wikidata). With templates (but also in life in general) it is important to assess things on their function. While the same data (an IAAF link) is displayed, the functions are different therefore this is not duplication – the two templates are also a good example of how form follows function. I would recommend reading more about design and usability approaches. It may change the way you see the world! SFB 19:53, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Sillyfolkboy: thanks for the link that unfortunately appears for a second and it tells me that there is an error. Will try to read it via Wayback (grrrr).---Biografer (talk) 20:26, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep as above, very useful.-Arorae (talk) 20:50, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, from what I gather it would be redundant if it were an external link, but IAAF name should never be that, it should be an inline reference, which can not be superceded by any external or quasi-external source. Note: I will not read countless followups to this comment. Geschichte (talk) 18:15, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Geschichte: Agreed. Seen some articles here which had it as both internal and external link, so I removed it as an external link, living the internal intact. :)--Biografer (talk) 19:09, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep For ease of use of people who read wiki and might not know to look under authority control if they're looking for the source of the IAAF information. Red Fiona (talk) 16:46, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).